Moving after 35 yrs...

[cmzaha]

How in the world do you move after 35 yrs. I sold my house last week after 6 minutes of talking to someone and not planning this at all. A realtor wanted to buy my rental house which I told him no but mentioned I might want to sell my fixer-upper hillside home. Well, he walked in and said he wanted it. No fees, no inspections 170K less than one just sold for on our street that is in good condition, 200 sq ft bigger than ours on a corner lot. Now I am panicked.

We just got back from Winemmucca where we purchased 2.7 acres against BLM land on a hillside, but now I have to figure what to build on it, buy a vehicle suitable for gravel roads, put in fences, a well etc. This is all very overwhelming. Plus get my mom's empty house put together into living condition (the place she threw my kids out of) and move into it until all this is done. This is a nightmare. And I have not informed my mom and sister. Plus I do not want to move back on that street, it is the street where my rental, (our first house), is. I hate not living on the hill.

I don't know how to move 650 miles away, I have never moved out of Whittier... The street I live on now only changes name when it comes up the hill so I virtually live on the same street I was raised on. My rental and the first house is across the street from the house I was raised in from the age of two.

 

[KimW]

Oh dear. I really have no idea what to say except that I can wholly empathize with what you are feeling and, having moved long distances and after many years in one place (though not 35), with what you're facing.

Will be praying for you...

 

[AliOop]

Oh.my.goodness. Your crazy house-selling experience was like ours - unplanned, and rather disconcerting, to say the least.

That's a WHOLE lot of change in such a short time. Sending prayers your way for all to go well, with no family drama.

PS - I'm selfishly glad that we can stop and see you guys whenever we are on our way to Reno. Breakfast at The Griddle - yum!

 

[cmzaha]

Oh.my.goodness. Your crazy house-selling experience was like ours - unplanned, and rather disconcerting, to say the least.

That's a WHOLE lot of change in such a short time. Sending prayers your way for all to go well, with no family drama.

PS - I'm selfishly glad that we can stop and see you guys whenever we are on our way to Reno. Breakfast at The Griddle - yum!

I am glad too. I have been to the Griddle and it is yum. I am guessing it is going to be the better part of a year since we will probably go with a stick house and will obviously building. I also hope for no family drama... Whoo Hoo, a lot with a view and an end lot.

LOL, I had to take two tanks with three baby geckos with me since I had no one to take care of them and Tony did not want to drive the 10-11 hours so we stopped for the night in Bishop, at the Comfort Inn, when asked if I had any pets, nope was the answer. No way, not me...this morning when we were leaving I saw little fruit flies climbing the drapes, oops. I did kill them. Hey, the little guys had to eat...

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

How in the world do you move after 35 yrs. I sold my house last week after 6 minutes of talking to someone and not planning this at all. A realtor wanted to buy my rental house which I told him no but mentioned I might want to sell my fixer-upper hillside home. Well, he walked in and said he wanted it. No fees, no inspections 170K less than one just sold for on our street that is in good condition, 200 sq ft bigger than ours on a corner lot. Now I am panicked.

We just got back from Winemmucca where we purchased 2.7 acres against BLM land on a hillside, but now I have to figure what to build on it, buy a vehicle suitable for gravel roads, put in fences, a well etc. This is all very overwhelming. Plus get my mom's empty house put together into living condition (the place she threw my kids out of) and move into it until all this is done. This is a nightmare. And I have not informed my mom and sister. Plus I do not want to move back on that street, it is the street where my rental, (our first house), is. I hate not living on the hill.

I don't know how to move 650 miles away, I have never moved out of Whittier... The street I live on now only changes name when it comes up the hill so I virtually live on the same street I was raised on. My rental and the first house is across the street from the house I was raised in from the age of two.

I wish you the best of luck on your up & coming new found Home & Life... Fasten your seatbelt it's gonna be exciting!!

 

[cmzaha]

I hope you are right Peachy Clean. Can you imagine there were icicles hanging from the bottom of our car this morning when we left Winnemucca? This will be quite a change for a So Cal gal. You probably can since you are high desert if I remember.

 

[Cheeky Goat]

I just wanted to say I hope everything goes smoothly. I can’t imagine living after that many years!

 

[Babyshoes]

That sounds totally overwhelming! I think prioritising will be pretty important in this, as well as getting as much help as possible.

Try to remember the analogy of eating an elephant - it's impossible to do in one go and seems impossible when you first see it, but if you keep nibbling away at it, you'll get there!

 

[cmzaha]

It would be so much easier if I could just pack a moving truck and move but I have to figure out what to build move to another place while building. Plus stretching the money from our house. Blah....I refuse to put retirement money into this build and move. Of course, even after 48 yrs the hubby and I never see eye to eye. This outta be a real test of wills.

 

[jcandleattic]

Winemmucca

My husband and I would pass through Winemucca to visit his grandmother in Alturas CA. I remember the first time we drove through, there was this HUGE billboard sign when going into the town that said "Winemucca - city of paved streets!!" LOL
I used to have a picture of it somewhere, but no idea where it ever went. I've looked and looked for it over the years, and it's vanished. Just like the billboard itself.

 

[dibbles]

I've lived in my home for 30 years and the thought of sorting and moving is exhausting all by itself. The rest of it on top of that must feel completely overwhelming. Near the end of her life, my mom experienced some confused thoughts, and one day out of the blue - with no context - she said '5 pounds at a time'. I imagined she was thinking of something that would be difficult to do then that would have been easy for her before. I've applied that thinking to many overwhelming situations over the years since then. So, 5 pounds at a time and you'll get there. Or eat an elephant as @Babyshoes suggested LOL.

Hubby and I spent a night in Winnemucca when we drove to San Francisco a few years ago, but I don't remember much about it. I wish you luck, a family-drama free experience and the perfect new home at the end of it all.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I hope you are right Peachy Clean. Can you imagine there were icicles hanging from the bottom of our car this morning when we left Winnemucca? This will be quite a change for a So Cal gal. You probably can since you are high desert if I remember.

Yes most certainly' It gets cold in this High Desert' we have the two extremes cold freezing winter's sometimes snows for a day then its gone & Hot Miserable Summer's. The weather climate is defiantly a big change along w/ everything else. I hope your gonna be closer to your Grandaughter?. How exciting to build your dream home just as you want it, & maybe youll even want to make yourself some luxurious soap for personal use in your knew home. Wow I was shocked when I saw your pictures of the amount of products you sold @ the open markets what a job! & your displays were fantastic, I would of never thought a little rubber ducky would be a thing' lol who knew? I was @ the dollar store and saw a little yellow duck' & instantly thought of you selling them . Im looking forward to hearing about new life path journey & hopefully some pictures along the way.

 

[Kiti Williams]

How in the world do you move after 35 yrs. I sold my house last week after 6 minutes of talking to someone and not planning this at all. A realtor wanted to buy my rental house which I told him no but mentioned I might want to sell my fixer-upper hillside home. Well, he walked in and said he wanted it. No fees, no inspections 170K less than one just sold for on our street that is in good condition, 200 sq ft bigger than ours on a corner lot. Now I am panicked.

We just got back from Winemmucca where we purchased 2.7 acres against BLM land on a hillside, but now I have to figure what to build on it, buy a vehicle suitable for gravel roads, put in fences, a well etc. This is all very overwhelming. Plus get my mom's empty house put together into living condition (the place she threw my kids out of) and move into it until all this is done. This is a nightmare. And I have not informed my mom and sister. Plus I do not want to move back on that street, it is the street where my rental, (our first house), is. I hate not living on the hill.

I don't know how to move 650 miles away, I have never moved out of Whittier... The street I live on now only changes name when it comes up the hill so I virtually live on the same street I was raised on. My rental and the first house is across the street from the house I was raised in from the age of two.

Until you close, you can back out. That realtor sounds like a shark.

 

[earlene]

Wow, Carolyn! What a huge endeavor! Or should I say endeavors?

Moving after 18 years was a huge thing for me, but then I think it was easier that time because I was alone. Plus the distance for the move was shorter. Moving after 6 years with 2 people and 2000 miles was the hardest, because we had combined two households and not got rid of much in that process, then we decided to move across country.

What I did was to do some heavy-duty purging prior to the move; lots of free-listing on Craigslist and Freecycle; lots of lots of trips to the Goodwill with donations; multiple times of filling our huge recycle bin; a few trips to the junkyard to get rid of things that weren't good enough to donate & wouldn't fit in our trash bins. We had less than 2 months to get all that done & it was intensive work

Even then, when we made the final move, we filled a fairly large U-Haul truck and both of our cars and made the trip across country. I don't even remember how we got both cars across - Hubby must have towed his car or flew back to drive it later - I don't recall. I drove mine; he drove the U-Haul. We had help packing up the U-Haul on the day before the move, but other than that, we did it all ourselves, except his nephew came to Illinois with us to actually help unload and stayed for a few weeks.

I tried to take my Uncle's advice, but just couldn't bring myself to do so. His advice: Sell everything and start new at your new place. I have done it successfully once before - My first move from my first house to my first Condo - I got rid of every stick of furniture and bought everything new. I hope to do it successfully at least one more time with our next move (as yet undetermined.)

Neither my husband nor I was willing to get rid of every stick of furniture when we moved to Illinois in 2005, however. So since we were going to rent a truck for furniture, that just meant we chose to pack up all kinds of stuff we really could have done without. Some of it broke in transit; some of it wasn't worth the space it took up on the truck or in our cars; some of it has never come out of the boxes it was put into in 2005 and is still just taking up space in our basement. I certainly hope I can take my Uncle's advice again for our next move. It's just not worth it to drag all that stuff along while traipsing all over creation. And putting stuff in long-term storage is just a waste of effort, IMO.

Good luck to you! Are you going to move right to Winnemucca? Will you be renting while building, or will you live on site in an already existing structure or a temporary something while you build? Either way, it sounds like a wonderful adventure to me. To be able to build what you want sounds so fabulous to me; I've always wanted to do that, but doubt I ever will.

 

[KimW]

I tried to take my Uncle's advice, but just couldn't bring myself to do so. His advice: Sell everything and start new at your new place.

Smart man! We did do this when we were married. Sold/trashed everything from each of our apartments, except for my nightstand and coffee pot and little sewing table (to use as a desk), his dining table and guns, our clothes and one box each of mementos and personal files, and each of our toolboxes. My sewing machine went too since it all but died while sewing my wedding dress. Not even our towels, sheets, pots, pans, or dishes came with us! Your Uncle's advice reminded me of this and I must admit, it was rather freeing and not painful at all to buy new, and new to us, replacements. Why, oh, why we didn't do this again when we moved up here I have no idea, but I'm betting it was my fault. LOL We did fill many a bin and special trash pick up limits, some craiglists, put a lot at the curb for "free", many trips to goodwill, etc, and still there are some boxes in the basement that haven't been touched these four plus years. I sometimes think someone needs to put us out of our misery and light a match for us!

 

[AliOop]

I sometimes think someone needs to put us out of our misery and light a match for us!

Careful what you wish for... my sister-in-law and brother-in-law were forced to toss out boxes and boxes of stuff when their basement flooded. Fortunately, most of it was stuff they didn't need or want (and which they had lugged from CA to Wyoming in two Uhauls and a car).

 

[KimW]

Careful what you wish for... my sister-in-law and brother-in-law were forced to toss out boxes and boxes of stuff when their basement flooded. Fortunately, most of it was stuff they didn't need or want (and which they had lugged from CA to Wyoming in two Uhauls and a car).

You know - you are right! That really is like something that would happen to us. thanks for the reminder!!

 

[Jstheidi]

Uggg, I feel for you. We are kinda doing the same thing here! We are from Tennessee but been living in California for the past 21 years or so...We’ve been talking about moving from California back to Tennessee for over 15 years. We said once all the kids were over 18 ....and done with high school ...and able to make their own decisions for life ...that we would move back and have a more relaxing life with a less expensive house and be able to look towards retirement one day. Well, that time is now here. Our youngest just graduated high school last June and has gone off into the Air Force and we no longer have the need to stay here where we basically have to work just to pay a very high mortgage payment on a house that we will NEVER be able to pay off. We will have to work until the day we die! So, we started checking out houses on realtor.com, flew back to Tn this past November looked at a few houses, didn’t like them, or the area they were in, but came back home and kept searching and the hubby finally came across one he really liked but of course we can’t just keep flying back and forth (especially with Corona Virus) so we called a realtor from the listing and ask if she could do a video tour for us and she did and this house checked off just about everything on our list except being completely “move in ready”. So.....we are in escrow on a house in Tennessee (supposed to close on 3-31) and the crazy thing is we have never stepped foot inside the house! We’ve done the contractors inspection, and appraisal so we know the good, bad and ugly, all disclosures and now just WAITING for the closing date! And we haven’t even started packing anything with our California house or listing it on the market yet because I know it will sell super fast and I need to make darn sure I have a place to go before I list here! It’s going to be super crazy the next few months trying to get it all sorted and then let the dust settle! We are hoping we will end up with enough cash out of California to PAY OFF the Tennessee house after it’s said and done! If not it’ll be close! Then we can look forward to retirement one day with NO mortgage payment! Then I can just stay home and make soap all day! Oh...the house has a little room just off the laundry room that’s looking just perfect to make a dedicated soap room! That’s my biggest excitement.... and it keeps me moving forward. Wooohooo. Hopefully your moves go well for you! It sounds like a lot but it’ll be worth it I’m sure!

 

[Quilter99755]

I wish you well with all of your endeavors. We lived in Alaska at the time of our retirement, planned to spend the first winter traveling the Lower 48 to find a place that would ring our chimes, so to speak. Didn't find it the first year, so went back to Alaska in the spring. I spent the summer packing up my quilting room, sorting things that we might want to move...our best friends moved to Wyoming the prior year and had storage for anything we wanted to store there. My husband spent the summer playing music with all his buddies and fixing a few things on the house and trying to think up ways to spend the winter in Alaska or convince me that I wanted to spend my retirement there. It did not work. So our trek was over 2500 miles and then we still didn't have a home.

We had decided that most of our furniture was not worth the effort to move, but we did have plenty of mementos from our 31 years there that we did want to move. Most people move via a connex trailer or UHaul...we chose to do it via the postal service...102 boxes and one wooden crate (air freight) for the bigger electric tools in my hubby's shop. Everything else went in the truck that hauled our travel trailer or my car. We stopped in Wyoming to store the car and various boxes and traveled that winter with our daughter and grandson of one year. We found nothing that suited us and she wanted to settle in Idaho which had been her home for 10 years, so we found a house here and have been here since 2006. I don't regret not moving any of the furniture, but it was sort of a pain to have to replace everything...I found out I'm not much of a shopper nor do I enjoy the chore. I am more of a "buy anything that works...or the first thing I see" type of person. I think we were a little too "thrifty" when we first moved into the house and now I wonder why the heck I bought some of the stuff, but am too old to care about replacing any of the stuff. So I guess in the long run it all worked out. We are happy to be near our daughter and have been able to watch our grandson grow up as we grow old. That is more important than all the questions that we didn't know answers for when we moved.

I hope that your move is as easy as ours.

 

[Zing]

Wow, @cmzaha, I can't imagine what you're going through. It's a lot to wrap your mind around in such a short time. We just moved here after 30 years in Chicago, 20 years of that in our beloved house where we raised our children and a block right out of Mayberry, R.F.D. We moved for good reasons, it was planned, but still difficult. And we didn't even have to build a well!

Purging helped us a lot, and taking things just room by room. We put a lot in storage while we lived in a short-term rental before purchasing a new house. Even after a great purge, we realized after unpacking our storage unit just how much more stuff we could live without. And we're not even particularly materialistic.
Anyway, I'm pulling for you. Best wishes on all the transitions.